


Love Is

by Jayjaykirschtein



Series: Drabbles!!! on Ice [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Not really though, References to Smut, Slow Burn-ish, ends happy!, kinda sad, no actual smut though, teen and up for certain themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 22:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10055303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jayjaykirschtein/pseuds/Jayjaykirschtein
Summary: Love was an enigma until it crashed into his life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was a commission thingy for my best friend's birthday! Happy early birthday Sam! Love you! (Also some inspo came from Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye's poem "When Love Arrives")

He wasn’t sure what love was. What love  _ is _ . He’d seen it in movies, read it in books, heard it in songs - hell, he’d even skated and choreographed to it. Love was such a dynamic force throughout his entire life, but he didn’t know exactly what it was. The idea of it was an unapproachable enigma - an intangible, unreachable goal or feeling. It was a wisp of wishful thinking, barely grazing a cheek, or a chest, or the tip of a finger. It never came near him, though. It left him at such a young age that he believed it to be a myth, a lullaby, a tall tale - but never real. He’d always feel hypocritical - showing love and emotion through each jump, glide, and spin - but never knowing the depth of what exactly he was portraying. He didn’t know. He told his close friends that he didn’t care to know - they all knew that was a lie. His hollowed out smile and shattered glass heart hid their meaning behind his empty bottles and empty glasses with false hope and gold medals and flirtatious winks. 

 

* * *

 

 

He wasn’t sure what love was. All he knew was lust. Endless lust and and empty stare. For the longest time, he didn’t know there was a difference between lust and love. He thought that sweaty bodies pressed together in darkened hotel rooms was love. He thought empty sentiments whispered between kisses and thrusts was love. He thought empty hotel rooms filled with the stench of liquor and sex the morning after his youth was taken from him was love. Everything he knew - every one night stand, every needy messy hookup between competitions, every drunken regret - was love. Lust and love blurred together in an invigorating and blissful cacophony. He told himself time after time coming down from that fragile high that if love looked like this then he never wanted any part of it. It wasn’t until the emptiness caught up to him, the longing for whatever body took from him the night before to stay past sunrise, that he realized there was a difference. He hated lust. He hated love. He hated himself. And, though he still didn’t have anything called love in his life, he put up with himself and lust for as long as he could - at least he could find a release from the numbness in some way other than drinking, though he still did that too.

 

* * *

 

 

He wasn’t sure what love was. With every hand he’d seen held, every embrace that lasted more than a few seconds and didn’t evidently lead to the bedroom, every chaste but tender kiss that held so much warmth he could only imagine what it felt like - he saw love all around him. He hoped it was love, at least. He hoped that the soft glances, quick and sweet touches that had no sexual implications, the words exchanged between infatuated and smitten couples was love. It took him a long time to finally admit to his best friend that he wanted that. He wanted whatever love was. He wanted the mysterious feeling of fleeting glances and warm embraces. He wanted the whispered sentiments to mean something. He wanted his lovers to stay past the sunrise and hold him close so that he would finally feel something besides the numb empty bliss of sex and alcohol. He wanted to feel love, experience it. He still wasn’t sure what it was, but he wanted to know. He wanted to solve this master level equation. He felt like his life depended on it. He wasn’t sure how to find it or what it would feel like when he did, but he knew it was a necessity. He wanted to find this impossible concept. He doubted he ever would though. Old habits were painfully hard to break, after all. 

 

* * *

 

 

He wasn’t sure what love was. After a while, he was almost positive that the universal powers decided he wasn’t fit to find it. He used his desolation to his advantage year after year as he broke the world’s collective heart through his painfully exquisite routines. He would show the world how lost, despondent, desolate, depressed he was through his only outlet. But even then, he couldn’t escape the dark cloud of everlasting numbness that was threatening to envelop his entire being. He couldn’t escape the ever-so cliched dark pit of despair he was approaching at speeds upwards of infinity. He couldn’t escape the pain wracking his heart and brain and threatening to ruin him completely. No matter what he did, he couldn’t find love. That is - until he did. When he finally stopped looking - his swan song of lost love sang and forgotten - he finally found it. At least he hoped he did. He found love, whatever love really was, in the form of sweat and alcohol and everything he tried to remove from his life. He found love in the form of  the angels showing him his demons aren’t that bad. He found love in the form of slurred requests and drunken challenges. He found love - and he thanked the gods and stars above because he finally felt like he could leave his numbness behind. 

 

* * *

 

 

He wasn’t sure what love was, but he was glad that he had finally found it. He found it behind glasses and a crooked tie, and he loved everything about his newly found love. So his heart was broken when he never saw him again. The night of his life, the night that  _ gave him life  _ was taken away, never to be returned or remembered. So he sat, and waited, and fell back into the hole he found himself in throughout his entire life. He used his talents to change his emotions from desolation to desperation. He broke the universe’s collective heart through each jump, glide, and spin as he searched for the love that left him as abandoned and raw as his nights in blacked out hotel rooms and bathroom stalls. It took what felt like years, but in reality was less than one entirely, to finally find love again. Love looked different, and he still wasn’t sure what it was, what it felt like, what it wanted. Love still had glasses, but love wore pants - much to his chagrin. Love had lost the youthful excitement that had once shone through his champagne stained smile and his bright, glassy brown eyes. Love looked more composed but more somber, like the light had been drained from him slowly and painfully. Love was using his same talents to show lost love, longing, and desolation - just as he had once done himself. Love was different, sadder, chubbier - but love was still love, and nothing made him happier than being able to find his lost love again. He still had no idea what love was, but he was starting to figure it out. Someday he’d know. 

 

* * *

 

 

He wasn’t sure what love was, not entirely. But something about the way touches lingered and glances turned into warm and happy gazes made him feel like he was figuring it out. The way love moved, creating music with his body, capturing the entire universe and all of creation with the purity and raw talent he produced, made him feel like love was finally coming his way. After years and years of searching, he’d finally found love. Now love was finally finding him. He felt like he was falling headfirst into an ocean: unpredictable and tumultuous, but nothing short of beautiful. Each second spent in the presence of love taught him more and more about the intangible enigma he was so desperate to find. Love was kind. Love was scared. Love didn’t know what love was either. Love never saw or believed how beautiful he truly was. Love fell. Love hurt. Love cried. Love cried, showing that both of them had shattered glass hearts that needed more than hand holding and fleeting glances to glue the pieces back together. He realized that he loved love so much that he would do anything to make sure love knew what love was, felt like, looked like. Through chaste kisses and long embraces, he would show love how important, perfect, and beautiful he was. 

 

* * *

 

 

He was sure what love was. He would hold onto love with everything he could. No matter how many times love broke his heart or pushed him aside, he would hold love close and tell him that it was true. Love was beautiful but in pain. He knew he couldn’t take away the pain love bore but he could hold love’s hand and be there when love needed him. He wouldn’t push love. He wouldn’t force love to go beyond love’s boundaries. He would simply love. He finally knew what love was, he was sure of it. He was sure that love was beautiful and timid and everything perfect in the world. He knew that love was his. He knew that he was love’s. Even in the hotel room where he cried for the first time in years, he knew that love was his and he was love’s. He knew that the pain he felt in that moment made it real. He knew that love loved him and that nothing would change that. He knew he had to give love time to figure out how to love. He would be patient. He would wait for love - at least he finally knew what it was and that it was there. 

 

* * *

 

 

He’s in love. He knows what love is. He doesn’t have to wait for love anymore. Love is right in front of him, beside him, behind him, above him, below him. Love is his. He thinks back on the times in his life where love left him in the dust - where love was just lust in disguise, and he was a sad broken pup, abandoned by careless owners and never to be cared for again. He thinks back on the desolation he once felt, how nothing could make him believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would be lucky enough to find the solution to his never-ending equation, the missing piece to his puzzle, the air to lift his broken wings. He’s glad those moments are behind him. He’s not sure if he’ll ever recover from his dark and hollow past, but he knows that love has helped him come pretty damn close to forgetting - forgetting about everything dark in the world, if only for a fraction of a second. He’s free to love and be love by the answer to his question on love itself. He’s happy. He’s whole. He’s in love. He finally knows what love is -  _ who  _ love is.

 

He is Viktor Nikiforov. 

_ Love  _ is Yuuri Katsuki.

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

_ “Viktor - What are you smiling about? You look like something’s on your mind.” _

  
_ “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about how much I love you, my Yuuri.” _

**Author's Note:**

> I'm adding this to a series because I know I'll write more YOI drabbles as time goes on. No other drabbles are written yet though. Kudos and comments are more than appreciated! (comment please dear lord i need comments) Thank you!!!


End file.
